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Subject - Organic Chemistry

The term amide describes a group of compounds considered to be
derivatives of ammonia in which one or more hydrogen atoms are
replaced by inorganic or organic acid residues (acid amides) or
metals (metal amides, ammonia salts, e.g. sodium
amide (NaNH2).

Depending on the number of replaced hydrogen atoms, the resulting
compounds are named primary, secondary or tertiary acid amides
RCONH2,
(RCO)2NH,
(RCO)3N. Biomolecules mostly contain
primary amides which are derived from carboxylic acids and primary
amines and, characteristically, show the amido group R-CO-NH-R'. For
example, the amino acids asparagine, glutamine and
N-formylmethionine possess an amide group.
Coupling between adjacent amino
acids in proteins also is achieved by forming
amide bonds (peptide bonds).